Torres prefaces his chat with Mesmer by claiming that her “poem” entitled “This Poem” “shows a fabulous breadth of poetics.” Since the “poem” is a flarf assemblage of stolen phrases, this is like praising a burglar’s storage unit for showing a fabulous breadth of commodities.

The comparison of poetics and commodities is appropriate. As Conrad DiDiodato has observed, “I can now safely equate the avant-garde with any successfully retailed market commodity.” “Poets” like Mesmer are consumers above all; they consume such vast quantities of cultural effluvia that can do nothing but “regurgitate.” Their aesthetic diet is so nutritionally poor, however, that they mistake what their glutted minds expel for poetry.

What’s really sad is that the Poetry Foundation is there to stir their chunky puddle and assure them that yes, it ispoetry after all!

3 Comments

Joseph,<br /><br />thanks for referencing my little &#39;globalization and the avant-garde&#39; reflection. I&#39;m surprised it hasn&#39;t dawned on them yet or perhaps they&#39;re in denial. It seems to me only the &quot;receptional tradition&quot; types like us can (very paradoxically and perhaps justly) prie language loose (poetic language) from global capital. The avants have been swallowed

in 1965<br />Lester Barret<br />who bought one of my paintings asked me:<br /><br />&quot;How do you define art?&quot;<br /><br />I had no ready answer so i did not reply.<br /><br />He defined &quot;art&quot; for me:<br /><br />&quot;Whatever sells is art.&quot;<br /><br />as for this New-wave-oh Avant ?<br /><br />seems to me to be what re:mains after They re de file Her ( My Muse).

ABOUT

Joseph Hutchison, Colorado Poet Laureate 2014-2018, has published 17 books, including a translation of flash fictions by Mexican author Miguel Lupián, and co-edited two anthologies. He lives in the mountains southwest of Denver, Colorado, the city where he was born. He teaches at the University of Denver's University College, where he currently directs two programs: Arts & Culture and Global Affairs.